Originally Posted by GranteedEV
No, he wasn't. That is absolutely, 100% revisionist history.
For the sake of comparision, going into his rookie year, the three players from his draft class who were considered a similar talent/type of player after their D+1 years were Draisaitl (who was an actual example of not ready the year), Reinhart, and Larkin (whose stock rose after a great year in college). Technically, Bennett and Larkin were late birthdays whereas Draisaitl and Reinhart werd early birthdays, so the latter two would be expected to be more productive:
Bennett had a successful rookie year despite being stapled to Markus Granlund's wing for two months. His best linemate his rookie year was probably Mikael Backlund, who whilst a solid linemates, was not quite the Henrik Zetterberg that Dylan Larkin was playing with, the Ryan O'Rielly/Jack Eichel that Sam Reinhart was playing with, or the Taylor Hall that Leon Draisaitl was playing with. Regardless, his 5v5 production that year was pretty close to all three players!!
Draisaitl - 2.17 P/60 (Centered Taylor Hall)
Larkin - 2.01 P/60 (Played on Zetterberg's LW)
Bennett - 1.67 P/60 (Short-lived (but productive) stint at center, then Backlund's LW, then Granlund's LW, then Backlund's, then centered Joe Colborne)
Reinhart - 1.67 P/60 (Played on ROR and Eichel's RW)
Even without factoring in the gap in rookie year linemate quality, Bennett and Reinhart were top 120 in forward production rate in a 30 team league. So basically an average 4th-best-forward-on-a-team. As a rookie.
Of the four teams (Edmonton/Calgary/Detroit/Buffalo), Detroit and Calgary were the two that had actual realistic playoff aspirations in 2015-16, which is why Hartley had him all over the place (and also why Larkin was stapled to Zetterberg's wing in Datsyuk's final year).
Hartley was trying to give Granlund one last shot at 3C that year and did give him Bennett/Hudler as linemates but even they couldn't get ol Granny out of the D zone. When that flopped Bob needed Bennett at 2LW since this was pre-Tkachuk. As soon as we were effectively eliminated and in the same boat as the other two non-playoff teams, Bennett was moved to center, but wasn't given Gaudreau as a linemate, ostensibly because of the organizational belief in Monahan. Regardless, Hartley stated that offseason that Bennett's two-way game at center had impressed him.
It was the next year that anyonr started questioning Bennett's so-called readiness, and that was almost exclusively because of Troy Brouwer and Glen Gulutzan. But even then, by the time the playoffs had rolled around, Versteeg-Bennett-Chiasson were an effective, if unlucky 200-foot line, being tasked with some legitimate matchups (i.e. Kesler). Ironically, Bennett's disasterous sophomore year was still superior to Dylan Larkin's sophomore year. Larkin was also moved to center in the absence of Pavel Datsyuk. But that also meant a larger role was given to him.
Bennett was ready for an expanded roll as a 3rd year player.
Which he never got because ten games into centering Curtis Lazar et al, he was moved almost permanently to the wing. Until the Lucic-Bennett-Dube line reminded everyone that Sam Bennett is an awesome center. Which the Flames abandoned again because the leash on him was non-existent. In terms of icetime, I'd wager Sam Bennett's top twenty single game icetimes have all come as a Florida Panther, and I'm not sure he's even played twenty games yet.
Meanwhile Dylan Larkin actually was handled the opposite of Bennett, and saw his career trajectory go upwards.
Bennett had no leash here to be a relied-upon centreman, despite the obvious talent level that got him drafted 4th overall.
Okay, first to the AHL point - I agree with you that Kylington wasn't ready for the NHL, at least for a couple of years after his draft. However once he WAS ready, he got limited minutes in a bottom-of-lineup role - which is very much like Bennett. While the Flames never had the defenseman equivalent of Troy Brouwer to staple him to, they certainly stapled him to the pressbox.
He had no leash here to be a relied-upon defenseman, despite the obvious talent level AND the significant strides he made in the AHL.
Much like the Flames arbitrarily favoured Monahan and later Lindholm over Bennett, they have favourted Valimaki over Kylington.
Kylington played one game in the top 4 yesterday, but it's not clear that he's been given a leash to play to his potential, although I have profoundly more faith in Darryl Sutter than I do the previous three Flames coaches. Regardless, one bad shift could see him stapled to his version of Troy Brouwer(/Curtis Lazar/Mark Jankowski/Tobias Reider/Brett Ritchie) again - the pressbox.
One game. We don't even know if he'll be alongside Tanev next game yet.
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